European Museum Night in Burgundy

People all over Europe went to visit their local museum yesterday evening for this annual event which attracts many thousands of people. The objective of this original initiative is to make museums more attractive. Mission accomplished. The European Museum Night takes place every year in the middle of May, when museum doors open free of charge and people flock to see and participate in the many cultural activities and spectacles put on for the delight of all. The atmosphere is both festive and cultural. The fun lasts from sundown until one in the morning and it is proving to be a big hit with children, young people and veteran museum-goers alike. This event has nothing to do with dusty dinosaur skeletons and not daring to sneeze for fear of being admonished. The byword here is creativity. This year the Museum Night will take place May 18, 2013.

It all began in 1999 when France decided to open up all its museums to the public on a weekend day in May. It immediately caught on and was extended to all the museums in the 39 signatory countries to the Cultural Convention of the Council of Europe in 2001. It has continued its successful run and now includes UNESCO as one of its major patrons. This year’s Museum Night saw over 2 200 museums in 41 countries bathed in light and echoing to the sound of music, theatre and other cultural events. Visitors are offered an original view of the museums’ contents. Museum staff exchange their habitual stern regard for smiles and a willingness to participate and explain exhibits in an informal setting.

Events in France included a choir interpretation of Prévert’s songs at the Fine Art museum in Caen, storytellers telling their tales of theatre from the Middle Ages at Paris’s Quai Branly Museum, and visitors to the Mac/Val centre in the suburbs of Paris were able to watch a concerto played on….pans and pressure-cookers. Children were not forgotten either. Far from it. Many events were designed with them in mind including a treasure hunt at the Jacobins Museum in Auch and origami sessions and puppet shows at St. Etienne’s Art and Industry museum.

People were having fun elsewhere in Europe too. Visitors in Lisbon were able to take rides in horse-drawn carriages and enjoy a tour of historical sites and, in Warsaw, museum curators cleaned up its old communist era buses called “Cucumbers” by the locals and took people to visit over 140 sites of historical interest. In a wry twist of Polish humour, the National Memory Institute, which participated in the trials of Nazi and Stalinist crimes, opened up its Communist Police archives.
In Gdansk, the Solidarity Museum recreated, using street theatre scenes, the massive strikes of the 1980’s and their repression by ZOMO paramilitary groups.

Over in Rome, people were able to walk freely around the city’s antique forums and the Caracalla therms, colourfully lit up for the occasion. Finally, people in Belgrade went back in time not with their eyes, but with their taste buds. The Royal Palace, which Tito used to live in, was opened up to the public, who were able to eat the favourite recipes of both Tito and the old Royal Family. These doubtless delicious dishes were recreated by a team of chefs who had been specially brought in for the occasion.